Red's Dead
by Jettsam
Summary: "Don't make me laugh," Blue scoffed. "Red's alive. If you knew him like I did, you'd be pretty damn sure of that." / In which Leaf runs away from the family that lied to her to find the missing brother who may not remember who she is. The missing brother who may even be dead.
1. Prologue

_**Red's Dead **_**by Jettsam**

**Chapter 1 - Prologue.**

* * *

In a moment the once-dead screen was washed with light. The picture coughed and sputtered and the smears distinguished themselves—suddenly there were moving shapes, a thin woman and someone barely taller milling before a cream-painted backdrop. The corner of a hanging painting peeked into the frame.

The boy raised an arm to scratch the back of his neck, a stream of slow pixels whipping after the motion. The dark patches that must've been his eyes found the camera, and he held it in his own gaze, for a moment. You could make out the shape of his nose, barely. His hair was a swath of dark ginger.

The woman made a vague gesture and sat in a chair on one side, wrapping her dark coat tighter around her body. The boy caught the motion and slumped on the leathery sofa behind him, pushed up against the wall. Most of his lanky frame slipped from view. For a moment the two were rather still and the picture took a moment to sharpen itself.

"So…" the boy said. The sound, a burst of soft static, trailed off.

The woman had been shuffling in her chair, sifting through a small notebook in her lap for what she'd scribbled there. "I hope this goes without saying," she began, letting a tiny chuckle creep into her voice, "but I'm so grateful for your time. I know these past months haven't been so calm for you, and it really is such a pleasure to be able to meet with an ex-champion like yourself."

The boy gave a tired shrug. "Ah, no worries."

"But I figure you know we're not here to talk about your successes."

For a moment, quiet. The interviewer glanced down at her lap, where her hands curled together like white flowers. "Tell me about Red. The rumors go that you two were close childhood friends."

The boy let his head lean back just a bit and a short sigh followed. "Red? Oh, yeah. We were the best of friends." His stiff laugh sounded artificial, shot through with static. "You could say I knew him well. We were neighbors, y'know? Did almost everything together." He paused. "We even got our first pokémon side by side—that reminds me. He was a sentimental kid. The only reason he went for the charmander was because of his name, get it?"

"I get it."

"But, you know. We've both changed a lot."

The interviewer leaned forward. "How so, would you say?"

He crossed his arms and a breath of air puffed from his mouth. "I mean…a lot happened, on our journey. He was a real good kid back home, total mama's boy—kind of a loser, growing up. He loved pokémon though, so there was the one thing we had in common."

"But…you two were good friends?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Pallet Town's small, y'know? What can I say. Not a lot of options for either of us, but it was alright when we were kids. Growing up just made us realize how different we were, I guess. He was always kind of easy to pick on, so I'd started shoving him around a little bit over the years, but it was all good natured." He grinned. "I mean, mostly."

The woman hummed to herself.

"Yeah. That was right around the time he knew I'd be starting my journey, so…he kind of begged my grandad to let him go too."

"Really? Why do you think that is?"

The boy tilted his head. "I guess I made him think he had something to prove."

"Ah." The interviewer gave a knowing nod. "So there was a bit of a rivalry."

He snorted. "Yeah, call it that. I won't lie, though—I was always a few steps ahead, right till the end. It took him about that long to catch up, but…Red was always a pretty tough kid. I'll give him that."

"Mhmm," she murmured. "I believe it. But I want you to go into more detail—you mentioned a lot had happened on your journey."

The boy ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, yeah. I, um… We were like most green trainers. Started out so full of hope, him especially. And you could see it in everything he did. He was never a chatty kid—got even quieter as he got older, actually—but he didn't need to speak; it was obvious. He and that charmander wore each other out."

"And did he lose that…optimism?"

"I…" He gave a sigh, crossed his arms a bit tighter over his chest. "Right, he did. He lost it. But I guess I can't pinpoint when that was."

It was quiet, just for a moment.

"Could've been Team Rocket. They were pretty fuckin' annoying. I… I know Giovanni especially got to him, but they were never something we couldn't handle…"

More quiet.

"I know people have all these bullshit theories about how he saw ghosts in Lavender Town and went mad or something, but I mean, come on. Yeah, those just piss me off."

The woman leaned in. "But it does sound like you both had a stressful pokémon journey."

He chuckled. "Nah, don't get the wrong idea—he just…wasn't the type to get stressed. I hadn't known it for the longest time, but he had so much hidden confidence in himself. He never had any faith in luck, just his own talents and skills. And his pokémon."

"That's interesting," she murmured. "Is there anything else that may have changed him? Turned him a little pessimistic, I mean."

"Well, I…" He let out a breath. "I mean, I didn't think he was the type to just disappear, either. I don't know, maybe it was the, ah, accident, with my raticate, but I didn't think he knew…"

The interviewer tilted her head, curiously.

"No, I can't really speak for what went wrong. Like I said, he was always quiet. But I think I knew he changed when…"

"When what?"

"When he entered the Champion's Room after I'd stormed the Indigo Plateau and taken the title. He was there just hours after I'd won, right on my tail like I knew he'd be. Yeah, that's when I knew."

He was shaking his head.

"He looked…angry."

"At you?"

His laugh was mirthless. "Funny, that's what you'd think. No, that wasn't it. I don't think he was even seeing me, you know? He just had this hunger, this desperate need to be the best. The anger was that he wasn't yet." The boy shrugged. "Of course I ignored it at the time. Gave a little speech about how I was gonna wipe the floor with him. How I was the strongest trainer in the world. And he was just…himself. Silent. Maybe the old Red would've congratulated me, defended his own strength before the battle, but he didn't say anything. He didn't even move till I was done talking."

"And then?"

He leaned up against the sofa, tossing his head to the side. "He wiped the floor with me."

Neither moved, for a moment. "Don't get me wrong, it was a hard-fought battle, but…that's the only way I can describe how he won. The way he fought was…ha, dangerous, I guess. Gave me chills." He let out a gentle laugh, but it died. "I watched him, though. I saw it, in his eyes. Something was different there. Something was." The boy trailed off.

"I see," she said. "Was he silent even after the battle?"

"Yeah, well. Even I was pretty much speechless. I'll never know if he would've said anything; my grandad showed up about then."

The woman gave an enthusiastic nod. "Ah, Kanto's pokémon professor?"

He grinned. "The one and only. I wasn't so glad to see him, though—I mean, I'd just lost hard. I knew he'd come to congratulate me or something, but he came a couple minutes late." Shook his head. "No worries though, he just…congratulated Red instead. Look, I'd always known it was happening. Red had been getting all his praise. It's like he was stealing my own grandad's affection away from me, bit by bit. I didn't understand it then."

"And now?"

"I thought I'd only made one mistake: losing to Red. But I knew Red had lost before. Hell, sometimes it was even to me. But…none of that was about me. It was clear who the old guy favored."

He clasped his hands in his lap. "I'll admit, it stung."

She gave a sympathetic hum. "Do you resent Red for that?"

"Used to. Don't anymore. Guess I should clear that up before we get a bunch of conspiracy theories about how I'm responsible for him going missing."

She laughed.

"Yeah," he said. "After that, anyway, I just went home. Red went into the Hall of Fame with the professor."

"And did you see him again after that?"

"Yeah, yeah. I did, but I don't know. I guess by then, at least to me, he was already gone."

The interviewer opened her mouth to speak, but didn't quite make it.

"After that he was just in and out of Pallet Town, gone for longer and longer every time he left. The professor told me he was just dedicated."

"To what, do you think?"

He shrugged. "Catching them all, of course."

"Of course. But when did he really go missing?"

The boy gave a nervous smile. "Yeah, there's a bit of a story. I, ah, went to explore this particular cave. Ran into something inside it, scary powerful. Could have been a pokémon, but maybe not. Not sure I'll ever know." He took a breath, kept talking. "I was hurt pretty bad, to say the least. I still walk with a limp. Needless to say, that thing was dangerous. Wiped out me and all my pokémon. Next thing I know, I'm back home in some casts, hopped up on all these painkillers. My sister told me my blastoise had managed to get me back."

"Faithful pokémon you must have."

He nodded. "Most trainers have 'em. If they're good, anyway."

This time there was no laugh.

"I always wonder. If I had never told my grandad, if he had never told Red about what I found in that cave, maybe he wouldn't have disappeared. I knew he was gonna look for the thing that tried to kill me—yeah, we all did." He swallowed. "I've got this memory. It must've been before he left, if it wasn't the meds just messing with my head, but I swear he stood in the doorway of my room for a minute or two. Silent as ever, just watching."

He looked aside. "Yeah. That was the last time I saw him."

The woman was tentative, her voice soft. "Do you think something happened in the cave?"

He gave a slow sigh, leaned to rest his forearms on his knees. "Yeah, that's…that's what I've always worried about. The professor says differently."

"And what does he say?"

He snorted. "He says Red came back, and he met with him. Told me the idiot was unscathed, his pokémon mostly fine, but…but now he had another one."

"Oh," she whispered. "Could that be—"

"Ha, I don't know. I…I can't imagine that."

"Did…your grandfather say anything else about that encounter?"

"Yeah, he said it was short and sweet. Red didn't stay long, didn't say much. He left." The boy was rubbing his temples. "I guess some small part of me's always believed that whole thing didn't even happen, that even though the cave was searched so many times, he still died in there."

The woman seemed, for a moment, like she had nothing to say.

"But most of me doesn't think so."

"And…why is that?"

"Because my grandad was the most shaken I'd ever seen him, telling me that story. He was confused, conflicted. Spent a lot of time talking to Red's mother. I don't know how real it was, what he told me, but I think he finally understood that something had been wrong with Red."

"I see." She glanced again at her lap, shuffled with the pages of her notebook. "There are some pretty popular rumors in circulation these days, that he's wandering Kanto alone. What are your thoughts on those?"

"Oh, those. Yeah, I used to think they were stupid. The guy's got no reason to "wander Kanto"… he'd completed the Pokédex. There's nothing left out there for him. I don't know, maybe he realized that and just couldn't accept it."

Her mouth opened to speak but he beat her to it. "And yeah, before you ask like the rest of them, I've heard all the stories about his "ghost" in the Johtan mountains. Sitting at a peak, still and silent like he was before that last battle. Yeah, he'd do that."

She jumped in. "Do what, exactly?"

He sighed, sat back again. "Well. Knowing him, anything. If he's been seen up there, that's no ghost. It's just Red."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean at this point, I'll believe anything. I saw those…those eyes he had."

He looked down.

"You know, I bet he's out there somewhere, with his pokémon, way beyond his limit…Look, I may have dedicated my life to pokémon; that's the only reason I ever made it so far, but Red…"

It was quiet.

"Red sold his soul for it."

There was a click. The screen froze and died to black.

* * *

**I don't like long ANs but y'know. **

**I'm in school and all so finding writing time can be tough. I think most of this was done at like 11-2 am, prime writing hours. Anyway, I'll be working on an outline and the first couple chapters when I can, and if a fair number of people are interested in seeing more it'll be a bit higher on my priority list. Just a warning, this story won't be short, but I hope you think that's a good thing.**

**Anyway, reviews are a hassle but I enjoy them so leave one maybe. Either way, thanks for reading.**

**-Sam**


	2. One Chance

_**Red's Dead **_**by Jettsam**

**Chapter 2 - One Chance.**

* * *

She cut a dark figure, standing all alone against the harsh fluorescence of the market aisle. Her hands were stuffed in the pockets of the oversized rain jacket and one foot absently kicked at the floor. The place was nearly empty.

_What did she say?_

She scanned the shelves, full of maybe three or four different knockoff potion brands and a couple of those full restores she still didn't have any hope of buying, even if the badges on the trainer card in her jeans pocket was enough to convince the cashier she knew anything at all about what she was getting. She wasn't sure she could use a potion—yeah, you just spray it, but where? The wounds? Into its mouth? Did it matter?

_Something like, "you're only gonna get one chance."_

In her pocket, her phone buzzed. She jolted, fumbling for it.

She picked up, already scowling.

_"__Leaf? Are you done yet?" _The voice was scratchy, loud, competing with the thick and permeating chaos in the background.

"What? I just got here; why's it so loud?"

_"__Hurry up, man. I've been hanging out in this stupid food court for like twenty minutes and everyone that lives here is so goddamn uptight—"_

"Seriously, Thal?" She glanced towards the cashier across the store, busy with something on his computer behind the counter. The screen lit up his glasses, sunk shadows into the wizened creases of his face. "I'm...working up the nerve."

The other girl's snort didn't sound like one, over the phone. _"Oh, come on. It's Verdanturf, no one gives a shit what you do there._"

She sighed, picking out a super-potion bottle from the shelf to read the label emblazoned across the seal. The logo had a smug taillow flexing its wings like muscles. "Yeah, I don't think any self-respecting trainer actually shops here."

_"__That's great, Leaf; you're neither of those. Get it over with and get here, okay? It'll be fine."_

She hung up fast. Leaf let out a heavy sigh, shoving the phone back in her pocket. She stared at the floor for a moment, at the cracks in the linoleum, anxiously tapping a foot. In a swift motion she inhaled and grabbed three more bottles of TuffTaillow and marched up to the register to dump them in front of the cashier. It took him a second. He looked up. His sunken eyes were the color of dishwater.

"Just these, miss?"

"Uhh…" She took a moment, scanned the impulse-buys cluttering the counter shelves. "And this." She added a paralyze-heal to the mix. "This too." A pack of gum.

He looked at her. Her skin crawled.

"Yeah, I'm…about to challenge the Mauville Gym," she said, flashing a bright smile she couldn't keep up for more than a couple seconds. He glanced at her merchandise, then back at her. The sallow skin of his face must've been too heavy to stay where it was supposed to. It drooped like it was melting.

"ID?"

"Right." Leaf fished out the plastic trainer card, wondering for a moment how she could have gone through so much trouble the past few weeks to buy a few bottles of TuffTaillow, a paralyze-heal, and some gum. She handed it to him, her eyes flicking across its laminated surface like she was checking it for flaws, for the tiny idiosyncrasies that would give her away to him.

He gave it a once-over; handed it back to her. He started scanning her items.

Leaf swallowed, stuffed it back in her jeans pocket.

"Your total." She fumbled for some cash and paid, and the cashier handed her a paper bag with her things. "Y'know," he muttered, "this brand of potions doesn't work as well with pokémon in their second or third evolutionary stage." He was looking at her like she was an idiot.

And she _was_ an idiot.

"You may want to do some leveling before challenging Mauville. If that's the plan."

"Nah, it's okay," she said quickly. "I don't believe in evolution."

He let out a breath that must've been a scoff, and turned his attention back to his computer screen. "Ah. One of those."

"Mhmm." She was already backing away, towards the door. "Thank you, sir," she said cheerily, whipping around so she could let the easy-going expressions melt from her face the moment his eyes couldn't catch her, never mind that he'd already looked away and forgotten she'd come in before she left the building. The white light of outside was jarring and for a moment she stumbled blind, winding around the corner to feel for where she'd left her bike propped against the PokéMart's wall. She dropped her bag in the front basket and fished out a piece of gum, adjusted her hat and a pair of sunglasses and pushed off into a rush of cool air, gliding for a moment, just long enough to take in the view of Mt. Chimney's foothills. Here, the brown crags were a bit feeble, not quite tall enough to shed the green vegetative skin that scaled them. Far behind, the peak shot up like a fist erupting from the earth.

You couldn't see it so well from Mauville.

* * *

A small, skirted figure had stormed into the food court, wrapped in a dark jacket with her windblown brown hair disheveled across her shoulders, paper bag clutched in one hand. As she walked, a hand flew to her head to steady the white hat she usually wore. It made her easy enough to spot in a crowd, not that there was much of a crowd anymore.

Across the food court, another girl stood up and waved to get her attention. Leaf made for her, the one with the dark braids and the ripped jeans and the boots that put on a few inches she definitely didn't need. Her face had lit up.

"Thalia!" she called.

"What? I told you it'd work—"

Leaf wrapped her in a hug, her head barely reaching Thalia's shoulder. She buried her face there, in the leather of her jacket.

The taller girl froze, let out an awkward laugh, her arms hanging limp at her sides. "Oh god, what?"

"No, it's just…" Leaf pulled back and her grin was crazed and so not at home on her face, the one she liked to keep expressionless and flat when she could. Most of the time she could. "I can really do this. I can really… I can do this, Thal."

"Uh, yeah," the taller girl snorted. "I told you, right?" She grabbed Leaf's wrist in her usual way. "Come sit down, I got us some food."

She dragged Leaf to the two seats she'd been saving for upwards of an hour, pushed her down in the one in front of the ramen bowl that had probably gone cold awhile ago, but Leaf wouldn't care. The girl almost definitely hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was nearly seven.

"Oh whoa," Leaf muttered as she set her bag on the table. "Isn't the ramen here stupid expensive?"

"Yeah," said Thalia, sitting down next to her. "That's why I got one and ate half. Come on, finish it."

Leaf nodded, her eyes still a bit wide, taking up the chopsticks laid across the bowl. Thalia grabbed her paper bag and emptied it on the table, picking up one of the super-potions to inspect it with narrowed eyes. She snorted. "Oh god, I haven't seen this stuff since I lived back west. Y'know, I had this friend back in Rustboro that figured out how to get high off it."

"I bet," Leaf said between bites.

"I might pocket one of these. Old times' sake." Thalia set down the bottle, perused the other items for a minute. "Okay," she said, a bit slower than before, absently inspecting the label on the pack of gum. "So our fake trainer card works."

"Shhh." Leaf spared a glance around the sparsely-populated food court. Thalia rolled her eyes.

"So what's next?"

Leaf swallowed, set down the chopsticks again. "My dad gets home. He finds my card. I never make it out."

"Oh, hush."

"I feel like I'm being insane, trying to do this. I never even…"

"Hey." Thalia leaned closer, resting her elbows on the table. Leaf looked at her sideways, sighing a bit, remembering how it felt to stare into the deep brown of her eyes that would mirror her own if they were just a bit paler, a bit more unsure of themselves. Like that, Leaf could steal a little bit of what made her older cousin so calm all the time. "You _are _insane. Just own it now."

Leaf almost smiled.

"Your daddy won't be back til morning, so we've got a little while before I'm gonna go home. I want to help you figure out what happens next."

Leaf was staring at the wood grain of table, tracing the patterns with her eyes. Her mouth opened but she said nothing.

"What?"

"Uh…" She let out a short laugh. "Well, the _S.S. Anne_ pulls into Slateport in like two weeks—"

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah."

"It's just…"

"What?"

Thalia scooted closer, lowered her voice. "You're really going. I don't think you understand how impressive that is."

"Oh, stop it," Leaf murmured halfheartedly, trying to play it off.

"No, really. You're barely seventeen. Going off all by yourself."

"Yeah, well." Leaf took another bite of the ramen. "You know who else does that? Every trainer in the world."

"No, they don't," Thalia said. "They're not alone. So stop fighting me, Leaf."

Leaf shrugged. She was staring off into space now.

"Tell me how you're affording that ticket."

She shook her head, folding her arms on the table. "I've got it covered; don't worry about it."

"Like hell you do. Leaf, that's a luxury cruise liner."

"Uh-huh. I've been working at Crooner's since I was twelve. And I've got a backup plan."

"And what's that?"

Leaf grinned, fishing beneath the neckline of her t-shirt for the glittering necklace that hung there, weighed down by the tiny moonstone pendant. She swung it like a pendulum.

"Damn. You'd just sell it?"

She let it drop, glancing over her shoulder like her dad could have returned home from his business trip right then, and he was creeping up to find her, to scold her for not being home when it was so late, for hanging around that derelict cousin of hers, maybe for the illegal trainer card stashed in her pocket. "Oh, yeah. There's this pawnbroker I know in Slateport. He's an ass, but I can handle him."

"Your dad gave that to you, didn't he? Kinda cold."

Leaf snorted. "That's his problem."

"Yeah? Probably won't be his first concern, I guess."

Leaf's eyebrows pulled together and she was looking away again, the way she did when she wanted to stop thinking about whatever it was she was thinking about.

"Hey," Thalia said, resting a hand on Leaf's arm. The younger girl didn't return her gaze this time. "I know you can't give me all the details. But tell me the ship's course, at least. I mean, I'll just look it up if you don't."

She let out a breath. "Yeah, uh...Slateport, Lilycove, Olivine in Johto, and then Vermilion City."

"Lilycove? What?"

"Yeah," Leaf said, nodding. "We can say goodbye there. It'll be in the harbor for a couple hours that day, so I'll go find you and Ronan."

Thalia was looking at her like she was stupid. "What date?"

"April 14th. It's a Thursday."

"God, you're dumb."

Leaf scowled. "What?"

"Tell me one thing."

"Mhmm."

"Do you really want to have to see your dad again before you go?"

Leaf looked at her, mouth half open. "What?"

"I'm saying just come stay with me in Lilycove."

Her mouth opened a little more.

"Come on. Save ticket money. We'll leave tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight. I'll call Ronan."

In a moment her face had split into a grin again, and there was a prick of euphoria deep down in Thalia's chest that she could make that come back, no matter how awkward those emotions looked on her, like her face didn't quite know what it was doing.

Thalia stood up, slinging a red tote over her shoulder. Leaf scrambled to match her and shoved the heirlooms of Thalia's drugged-out high school years back in the paper bag, along with the gum and paralyze-heal.

"Here's the plan," Thalia said cheerily, picking up the empty bowl. "We go upstairs to your apartment. You pack some bags. Then we head to Slateport—see the grandparents, and you've got a date with a pawnbroker."

"Oh god, don't call it that," Leaf scoffed, but she couldn't hide the anxious excitement lining her voice. "You haven't met Wilkes."

"I'm gonna. And then Ronan's flying us to Lilycove." She put the bowl away and came back to grab Leaf's wrist again, but this time Thalia was following her, darting out of the food court like she wanted to jog but was holding herself back just enough. She'd done that forever, hadn't she, holed up between Mauville and Slateport like the rest of the world was out to get her.

Thalia guessed, in a way, that it was. Only now had she started to let it.

* * *

**So I'm kinda stoked I got 14 followers right off the bat. I haven't done much with this site for a couple years, but I don't know, that seems like a lot? Y'all are pretty cool and I'm glad you're liking it. Lemme tell you, it gets wild.**

**I can't say I can be consistent with update times, but on average they'll be about this long and it's probably safe to expect 1-3 weeks between chapters. I'm _sorry. _I'm doing my best. I'll put some progress updates on my profile if you wanna check that periodically. Or send me strongly-worded PMs, I love a good verbal spar. **

**Anyway, go and validate me. I like reviews and follows and favorites and things of that nature. Thanks!**

**-Sam**


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